News Release

Turkey Wages Ethnic War; Increases Repression

March 14, 2016

CNN reports: “Turkish authorities arrested at least 29 people in anti-terror raids and fighter jets struck Kurdish separatist targets in Iraq on Monday, a day after a car bomb exploded in the capital of Ankara, killing at least 37 and wounding scores more. … Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to bring those responsible for Sunday’s attack to justice, saying the country will bring ‘down terror to its heel.'”

Business Insider reports: “An Ankara court ordered a ban on access to Facebook, Twitter and other sites in Turkey on Sunday, after images from a car bombing in the Turkish capital were shared on social media, broadcasters CNN Turk and NTV reported.”

JESSE ROSENFELD, jesse.rissin.rosenfeld at gmail.com, @jrosyfield
Rosenfeld is a Middle East-based journalist who regularly contributes to The Nation magazine and the Daily Beast. He just wrote the piece “Turkey Is Fighting a Dirty War Against Its Own Kurdish Population,” which states: “Lazar Simeonov and I are the first foreign journalists to pass through the ring of steel that surrounds Cizre since Turkish government forces started a military campaign last year to crush an uprising by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). … Hundreds of civilians were killed before the military assault ended on February 11. …

“According to PKK fighters and commanders that The Nation spoke to behind barricades in the embattled city of Nuysabin, on Turkey’s border with Syria, it was the government’s unwillingness to accept national minority rights during peace negotiations nine months ago that led to the collapse of talks. They say this new war — the latest phase in a three-decade conflict — will expand, and they vow that the PKK will move its guerrillas into eastern, Kurdish-majority cities in the coming months while also bringing the war to the country’s major metropolises, like Istanbul.”